'India, your sport needs you'

Chloe Saltau

WITH THESE words, Wisden editor Lawrence Booth calls on cricket's most powerful nation to rise above the self-interest and Twenty20 obsession that threatens the game, especially in its traditional form.

Booth, editing the treasured almanack for the first time, tackles the big issues facing the sport including the uncertain future of Tests, the need for India to use its power responsibly, corruption and the confusing Decision Referral System, for which he says the number of incorrect referrals should be reduced from two to one per team per innings.

"India have ended up with a special gift: the clout to shape an entire sport," Booth writes in his notes by the editor.

"Some national boards would struggle to survive without an Indian visit. But too often their game appears driven by the self-interest of the few – officials unable to admit that injuries collected in, or aggravated by, the IPL damaged their side's chances in England; capable of suggesting disregard for the innings defeat at Sydney in January 2012 by responding with breathless news of the schedule for IPL5; and happy to whitewash the whitewashes with constant references to the World Cup."

The comments follow India's eight consecutive overseas Test defeats, including the summer's 4-nil whitewash in Australia, and include the observation that the influential country's apparent waning interest in Test cricket should concern everyone.

"Other countries run the game along self-serving lines too; cricket's boardrooms are not awash with altruism. But none wields the BCCI's power, nor shares their responsibility. The disintegration of India's feted batting line-up has coincided with the rise of a Twenty20-based nationalism, the growth of private marketeers and high-level conflicts of interest. It is a perfect storm. And the global game sits unsteadily in the eye. India, your sport needs you."

Both calls for an end to two-Test series when they do not involve Bangladesh and Zimbabwe; Australia and England have each played two-Test series recently. He is withering in his assessment of administrators' rhetoric on the primacy of Test cricket, which "has been stated so often as to have lost any meaning".

"Outside England, the Test match increasingly resembles the quiet zone of world cricket's gravy train: respected in theory, ignored in practice. And even in England, they have axed a Test this summer in favour of five extra one-day internationals against Australia."

Of the DRS, Booth writes: "As a direct consequence of India's unrivalled ability to get their own way, what is out in Mumbai may now be not out in Melbourne or Manchester. The debate over the Decision Review System has become so complex as to have lost touch with the game it was supposed to simplify."

Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year are Tim Bresnan, Glen Chapple, Alastair Cook, Alan Richardson and Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara, who is also the almanack's leading cricketer in the world.